The anonymous artist behind two DC sculptures commemorating riotous defecation on Nancy Pelosi’s desk and white supremacists’ tiki torches in Charlottesville may have struck again — or inspired someone else, this time in Philadelphia.
Charlotte Cohen, director of the city’s Public Art Association, said Hyperallergic that she was unaware of a crudely gesticulating gold statue of Donald Trump installed behind artist Gerhard Marcks’ bronze “Maja” (1942) in Maja Park until a reporter from the WashingtonPost called her on Wednesday, October 30 for comment.
An unknown artist had surreptitiously erected the Trump effigy with a cupped hand pointed toward the naked female figure and a plaque that read: “In honor of a lifetime of sexual abuse.” An extract is included with the skirting board description transcription of Trump’s infamous “grab them by the pussy” comments from a recording made in 2005 and leaked ahead of the 2016 presidential election. A duplicate of the image that appeared in Philadelphia surfaced in Portland just days earlier, opposite the abstract nude of Norman Taylor, “Kvinneakt” (1975). Hours after it appeared, the Oregonian reported, the image was mysterious beheaded.
“When I first saw the footage of it, I thought, oh, it’s really disrespectful to women, confronted with this very soft, beautiful shape,” said Cohen, whose organization restored the statue and placed it in the park.
But when she read the text, she understood that the installation was actually a satire, which she called “brilliant.”
“This is what public art is all about,” Cohen said. “These kinds of dialogues and debates and sticking to your words when you’re quoted in public like that.”
“Maya” once stood near the Philadelphia Museum of Art and was kept out of public view for more than 25 years until 2021, when it was moved to a new public park named after the work. Gerhard Marcks was labeled a degenerate artist by the Nazis and was fired from his teaching position in 1922 after trying to defend Jewish students and colleagues from persecution. According to the newspaper, “Maja” also survived a bombing of Marcks’ Berlin studio in 1943 Association for Public Art.
The WashingtonPost reported that a man claiming to be the artist behind the desk turd and tiki torch bronze tipped the publication to the Trump figure in Maja Park.
Cohen said that by the time Ashley Lippos, the organization’s communications officer, arrived at the park to take photos of the unauthorized installation, city workers were preparing to remove it because the artists responsible did not have permits. “It was probably quite light because two people could pick it up,” Cohen added.
On Thursday, October 31, a giant statue, characteristic of the pale and naked 43-foot-tall Trump figure, was paraded through battleground states like Arizona, Nevada and Michigan by anonymous organizers. banged on Kensington Avenue in Philadelphia.
Compared to Trump’s naked representation, Cohen said the work in Maja Park represents Trump’s own words.
Regarding the specific individual or group behind the feces and tiki works, and possibly the work at Maja Park, Cohen noted, “They’re taking an incredibly clever, satirical stance.”
